Page 183 of Texting Dr. Stalker

It wasmyturn to snap.

My turn to be ridiculous and wild and stupid.

Me:The only way I’m not going up this ladder is if you make me.

And then I tossed my phone onto the chair and scurried up to the roof.

* 44 *

Zander

Threats Have Consequences

MY EYES STUNG FROM SHOVING BROWN contacts in. My hair still reeked of black hair dye. And I’d dressed so damn fast, I honestly didn’t know how I wasn’t wearing two different shoes.

Bolting out of the conservatory, I breathed hard behind my mask and slipped through the fence palings. Racing over her lawn, I caught sight of her as I cut around the side. She balanced precariously with one arm wrapped around the ladder and an open bin liner in the other. Her rubber gloves were already covered in decaying muck from reaching into the gutters.

“Lori! Get your ass down here, right the fuck now!”

Peng meowed and charged from inside, almost making me trip. Leaping over him, I skidded to a stop at the bottom of the ladder just as one of the old wooden rungs cracked and splintered.

My heart seized.

Sailor let out the quietest, “Oh.”

And then she tumbled, mud and weeds flying, bin liner fluttering, and her highly breakable body tipping backward.

I didn’t think. I just acted.

Spreading my arms, I judged her trajectory and braced myself.

She landed as a dead weight, sprawling like a bride in my embrace.

“Oof.” Staggering backward, I struggled to keep my balance so we both didn’t plummet into the flowers. My shoulders screeched. My arms trembled. I fought to find her center of gravity.

Her panicked eyes met mine as I finally stabilised and clutched her close.

For a moment, she didn’t move. She panted hard, shock switching to realisation of how close she came to breaking her back or worse.

I drowned in her vibrant blue eyes. I crippled beneath the thundering of my heart.

Emotionssurgedthrough me. Protective ones. Possessive ones. Grateful and angry and needy ones.

Christ, I’d missed her.

I hadn’t been aware how wrong life felt without her in it. How empty my arms were. How painful my loneliness had become.

I needed to kiss her. Touch her. Make sure she was okay.

But all I could think about was her deliberately putting herself in harm’s way. She’d been pig-headed and reckless, and it made me far too fucking angry. All those sleepless nights of watching out for her. All those moments I put my own well-being on the line to heal hers.

She owed me, goddammit.

She owed me for caring, and this was how she repaid me?

No.

Just no.

---